Bedside Games of Shogi
by Narago
Summary: After his beating at the hands of Ino and Temari, Shikamaru's recovering quite nicely by himself. But his recovery isn't Temari's main concern.


Bedside Games of Shogi

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Once upon a time, all that Shikamaru had wanted to do was stare at the passing clouds while gently easing into a nap--maybe the wind would brush his face and cool his brow, and he would ponder sleepily some problems of shogi. But now, as he lay in the hospital bed with three broken ribs and a shattered leg, Shikamaru realized the foremost problem with cloud-watching: it was boring as hell.

One of the nurses had left a juice-pack by his mouth, and he sipped it with a small straw. The beating that he'd received from both Temari and Ino still gave him nightmares. Women; hadn't his father warned him about them? Suddenly, Shikamaru had the sickening presentiment of his marital life--visions of himself getting bitch-slapped around by whoever his wife would be assaulted him.

"Never," he rasped out. "Hell no."

The television in the corner was turned on to some cartoon show; a shinobi was dodging a flood of thrown shuriken, as the villain cackled madly. Bored, Shikamaru gathered together a tendril of shadows from a dim corner of the room, and gently eased them into a finger. Then he guided it to the TV, intent on switching the channel--

"Hey, if it isn't Shikamaru!"

Cloud-watching was boring, but getting a visit from Kiba was irritating. He wondered which was worse. Boredom, or irritation? Well, boredom drained the energy out of you, but irritation itched...

"Kiba," Shikamaru said, curtly. He wondered just how Dog-Face had recovered so quickly from the wounds that his date had given him. "How's it going?"

"Great," Kiba said, grinning. "I have another date."

"Didn't the last one teach you anything?"

"Oh, no," Kiba replied. "I mean, it would have, but chicks absoutely love Akamaru, so it was a done deal."

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe they go out with you not because of you, but because of your dog?"

"What? Come on, that's nuts."

"Oh yeah? Just a question then: did you happen to take Akamaru with you on your last date?"

Kiba looked... thoughtful, in a slightly depressed way. "You know, you have a point there."

Shikamaru sighed. "Good."

"I'll just take Akamaru with me this time."

He should have expected this. Really. "Fine. Whatever. What do you want?"

Kiba whipped out a small bento, wrapped in a pink handkerchief. "Chouji asked me to hand this to you--he told me to tell you that his mother's having a donkatsu day."

Shikamaru sniffed: the lunch smelled delicious. "Give him my thanks."

"And I also wanted to check up on my bunk-mate," Kiba added, smiling. His teeth, with pointed fangs, looked unintentionally vicious. Or so Shikamaru hoped. "I mean, I know my date was a disaster, but your's, my friend, that was a total--"

"It wasn't a date," Shikamaru said, cutting him off.

"You know that Ino chick wants you, and that girl from Sand, judging from those broken ribs she gave you, probably wants you too. You gotta make a choice, man--there's three: one is to take Ino. Two is to take Temari. Three is to do neither and hope that you'll survive the year."

"Wouldn't Temari just kill me if I took Ino--and vice versa?" Despite himself, Shikamaru was interested. Maybe this was what he wanted to hear. Not that he did, mind you, but still.

"That's why kunoichi exist," Kiba said with a grin. "So that they can fight over the man they want."

"You know, Kiba, it may be that girls go on dates with you because of you--" Kiba perked up at this--"but girls dump you because of you, too. Akamaru can't help, not like this."

"The hell you mean by that?"

"I mean that maybe your relationships would last longer if you just, I don't know, respected them a bit more--"

"This from a guy who got his ass kicked by his girlfriends."

"I told you, she's not my woman--" then Shikamaru stopped talking, for that was when Temari walked in through the door, frowning and sniffing the air a bit.

"Why does it smell like a dog in here?" She asked, then she spotted Kiba. "Oh."

"Whoa," Kiba said. "She _does _look mean."

"What?" Temari asked.

"Nothing," Shikamaru said. "Nothing at all--we were talking about those clouds up there."

"Really." Looking unconvinced, Temari dragged a chair up from the corner of the room and dragged it up to Shikamaru's bedside. Kiba, suddenly looking sheepish for he had been standing all this time, dragged a chair up for himself too.

"I just wanted to apologize," she said. "For, you know, kicking your ass."

"It's nothing," Shikamaru said, shaking his head--then a sharp prick of pain jabbed his chest as his broken ribs protested even that small movement.

"Nothing, huh?" Temari smiled, looked wicked. "Then you won't mind if I do this--" With this, she poked him on the chest, hard. He yelped.

"I'll be going now," Kiba said hurriedly. "See you, man--and nice meeting you. I'm Kiba, by the way."

"Temari," she replied. "Nice meeting you, too."

When Kiba left, she suddenly laughed. "I mean, just imagine it."

"Imagine what?"

"What if polygamy was legal? Nasty thought, but think of how whipped you'd be..." She laughed again.

"Whatever," Shikamaru said. "Just get it over with it, will you?"

"With what?"

"With--with whatever you came to do."

"I just came to apologize," she said, looking hurt. "Unless, of course, you actually liked the beating--then I absoutely cannot associate with you anymore. I don't like masochists."

"I'm not a masochist," he said quickly, before she could get any ideas. Although Temari said that she wasn't a sadist, the look on her face as her foot crunched into his abdomen still haunted his thoughts. "And I accept your apology."

"Really? That's great, then." Smiling still, she whipped out a small scroll. Shikamaru looked on apprehensively as she performed the hand-seals and smoke started pouring out of the scroll. Then--instead of some giant weasel or monster, as he'd expected, a giant, ornate shogi board popped out, with carved jade pieces.

"Where did you get that?" It must have cost a fortune, Shikamaru thought.

"It's my father's," Temari said. "Gaara gave it to me when he was elected Kage. Now, if you would finish out game from earlier--"

"I won then," he said. "And besides, I don't think I'm in the shape to play."

"That's even better," she replied. "I might actually have a chance to win."

Shikamaru pondered his options, decided that anything was better then cloud-watching, and smiled. "Fine, then. Not that I'll go easy on you."

"Maybe I should have kicked your head a bit more," she said, teasing. "Give you a bit of brain damage, and maybe even out the odds a bit."

And they began to play.

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A/N: I was going to get started on something bigger, but I love Shikamaru--the guy's the only character in Naruto that I can really identify with--and Temari's also one of my favorite characters.


End file.
